Microscopes

Scientists at Australia's La Trobe University have been developing a new microscope slide that presents cancer cells in color without the need for stains and dyes, and used it to detect breast cancer as part of an early trial.

Ever wondered what the inside of a dinosaur bone looks like in close-up? Or how about a few grains of pollen caught in knots of cotton fabric? Wonder no more thanks to hand-picked highlights from this year’s incredible Nikon Small World Competition.

A groundbreaking video of single-celled organisms moving around the gut of a termite has won this year’s Nikon Small World in Motion Competition. In its 11th year, this video microscopy contest continues to deliver astounding glimpses of tiny worlds.

By taking advantage of recent advances in smartphone technology and the infinite possibilities of Lego, scientists in Germany have built a cheap and easy high-resolution microscope that is part educational tool and part toy.

Researchers have demonstrated a quantum microscope that can break through a fundamental barrier faced by regular microscopes and see tiny structures that are normally invisible. The device “squeezes” light to snap images with far greater clarity.

Most conventional light microscopes have a resolution of 200 nanometers – this means that imaged objects which are any closer together won't be seen as separate items. A new high-tech microscope slide, however, boosts that figure to 40 nanometers.

An advanced microscopy technique has snapped “super-resolution” 3D images inside the brains of living mice. The method is so precise it imaged the tiny twigs on the branches of neurons, and could watch how they changed over the course of a few days.

Engineers at Brookhaven National Laboratory have designed a strange new X-ray microscope that takes advantage of the spooky world of quantum physics to “ghost image” biomolecules in high resolution but at a lower radiation dose.

Researchers at Leiden University in the Netherlands have created the world’s smallest boat. Measuring just 30 microns long, the tiny model was 3D printed as part of a project investigating how to make synthetic “microswimmers” in complex shapes.

The incredible winners from this year's Nikon Small World photo awards strike a unique balance between art and science, offering everything from a surreal close-up of the grooves in an old vinyl record to a stunning image of hippocampal neurons firing.

Zooming in on the motion of the microscopic, the winners of the Nikon Small World video contest offer up the closest one can get to shrinking down to the size of Ant-Man and experiencing the weird and wonderful world of polyps, proteins and parasites.

Diagnosing asthma in small children is often challenging, as standard measures such as lung function tests can't be used below a certain age. A new blood-analysis device could help, however, delivering definitive results in less than two hours.